


Soliloquy

by ElAlmaDelMar



Series: A/B/O/tober 2020 [23]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Gen, but barely tbh, mostly a study on loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:06:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27171508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElAlmaDelMar/pseuds/ElAlmaDelMar
Summary: There were so many days to count, one after another after another, that each day felt like nothing, stacked up against the time that had to pass.  He counted each day, but the numbers meant nothing.Two years was an awfully long time.A/B/O/tober Day 23: Desperation
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates
Series: A/B/O/tober 2020 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947415
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40
Collections: A/B/O/tober 2020





	Soliloquy

Luffy had started to lose track of the days, just a little. He didn't want to — no, he counted each day, each week as the seasons shifted wildly on Ruskaina. But there were so many days to count, one after another after another, that each day felt like nothing, stacked up against the time that had to pass. He counted each day, but the numbers meant nothing. 

Two years was an awfully long time. 

It hadn't been so bad at first. Rayleigh had been there in the early days, coaching him each day, pushing him harder and harder. But now that Luffy was starting to get his feet under him, Rayleigh had started leaving him alone for a few weeks at a time, letting him fend for himself — teaching him not to rely on his teacher's strength. There were beasts on the island he couldn't defeat yet, and that meant he had to avoid them. Had to _identify_ and avoid them, knowing that if he got caught, there would be no one to save him. 

He'd learned the first hard lesson already. He could be defeated. He could be killed. 

In some ways, it was almost like being back on Dawn Island. He had to hunt his own food; everything he ate came from his own two hands. If he didn't hunt it or gather it, he didn't eat it. No matter how tired he was, how hard he'd trained, or how awful the weather was outside his cobbled-together shelter, he could only rely on himself for the food he needed. 

( _Sunny's_ kitchen, bright and warm, full of the smell of sizzling bacon or roasting fish. Sanji's bright smile as he laid out their meals with a flourish.) 

He got lost on the island, more than he expected to. During the first couple months, Rayleigh was there with him and kept him in a particular area, stayed with him most of the time. Then he left, and Luffy had to learn to navigate Ruskaina in all its different seasons, by memory. 

(Nami's hand sure on the wheel, or intricately detailing the course they traveled. Rambling with Zoro during one of their island stops, the two of them exploring aimlessly, no destination in mind and therefore no fear of getting lost, just going where their feet took them.) 

He climbed trees to find birds' nests or ripe fruits; the trees were enormous, difficult to manage, their branches far spread apart and their trunks too thick to easily wrap around. 

(Robin's hands, reaching for what he needed before he even thought to do so. Always there, without asking, her readiness to help.) 

The shelter Rayleigh had helped him build was flattened during a howling blizzard that lasted nearly the full week of that particular winter. With another three weeks until his teacher came back, Luffy was gonna have to put the thing back together by himself. He sat with the poles and brushy branches and oiled cloth for hours trying to remember how they all ought to go together. 

(Usopp, clever Usopp, always ready with a toolbox and a tinkerer's inventiveness. Always ready to try putting things together, and usually succeeding at it.) 

He got hurt on the island. Rubber he might be, immune to an awful lot of damages, but the teeth and claws of the animals he fought, the long, wickedly sharp thorns of the bushes from which he hunted berries in their brief seasons, the campfires he built and sometimes couldn't control all that well — all these things still hurt him. He bandaged his own injuries as best he could, figured out through trial and error what leaves oozed a cooling sap that soothed his burns, and carried on. 

(Chopper, soft and sober-faced, offering medication with his little hoof-hands and bandaging Luffy's injuries with a professional touch and neatly-wound gauze that didn't interfere with his movements at all. Somehow just his touch could soothe pain away.) 

The silence got to him. The animals made noise, sure, but it wasn't talking — it wasn't being with people. The wind sighed or moaned or screamed, but it wasn't sharing joy with him. Luffy wasn't someone with an incessant need to be chattering, but sometimes he would talk to the animals or the trees or the rocks just to remind himself what his voice sounded like, during the times Rayleigh left him by himself. Otherwise, he felt like maybe he'd forget how. 

(Brook and Franky picking up their impromptu jam sessions, giving each other no more than a quick glance and a starting note before they were off, singing traditional shanties or improvised songs about the Strawhats' own adventures — filling the evening with joy and laughter.) 

It was the loneliness that was the worst of all, that made the days he carefully counted down seem like an endless marching prison of numbers. He wanted his nakama around him — wanted _people_. 

This was the longest Rayleigh had been gone so far, nearly six weeks, and every day Luffy threw himself into his training, into his hunting and gathering and careful survivalist routine, so that he had things to do, things to look at, things to bury himself in. So that he wouldn't feel the solitude pressing all around. 

He wanted someone to touch him. His skin _ached_ for the feel of a friendly hand, for the press of a cheek against his, for the rub of scent to scent. He was hungry, too — even hungrier than usual. Halfway through his third lunch, he sat back and frowned. 

"Oh. I guess I'm in rut." 

Normally, he barely noticed these things — his ruts were never bad, never intense. He just wanted to eat, wanted to be close to people. Things he always wanted, but _more_. If he was back on _Sunny_ , he'd go flop on Zoro to nap together, or lean over Nami's shoulder in the library to watch her work patient and steady on her maps, or follow Sanji around the galley until his amazing cook fed him full up. 

But he was alone. 

He settled himself in front of his firepit, watching the ever-burning embers glow, and wrapped his arms around himself. He could do that all he wanted, and the pressure felt a little like a hug, but it wasn't the same. You couldn't hug yourself properly no matter how far your arms stretched. 

He closed his eyes and pictured a sunny day at sea — Zoro napping on the deck, Usopp and Chopper playing a game, Brook alternating slow notes on his violin and a song about friends near and far. Almost, he could feel like he was there. He tried to remember the song, hummed snatches of it, but it eluded him. 

They were all so far away. He trusted them to be okay, trusted that they would all come back to him when the time came — he believed in their ability to do so. No doubts in his mind. But there was so long to go, and every fiber of his being ached for them. Until then… until then, all he could do was stay here, face the loneliness, and get stronger. 

He was doing it for them all. 

But oh, it hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> Hmm. I was going for a sense of emotional desperation here, and not sure I quite hit the mark. I like this as a piece of writing, but how well did I match the prompt? 
> 
> Come chat with me on my [Discord server](https://discord.gg/SWVYBBn)!


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